BRIGG CORN EXCHANGE REMEMBERED

FROM CLIFF TURNER IN NEW ZEALAND (FORMER BRIGG RESIDENT)

I have only recently discovered that Brigg's Corn Exchange has been demolished. I "trod the boards" there on four occasions in the 1930s. I was an Ugly Sister in Cinderella, the first show put on in Brigg by a very young Joan Dodd (nee Lyon) in 1937 or 1938. My pal Billy Cade was the other Sister. Only one performance was intended but so many people were turned away on the first occasion that we did another performance later. We raised a useful sum for Scunthorpe Hospital.

At the Grammar School speech day in 1937 I was a carol singer in a short play put on by Form 4a. The school magazine described the carol singers as being "valiantly led by Turner".

At about the same time the school entered a choir in the Brigg Musical Festival. We were coached  Mr Pratt and Mr "Tiger" Richardson. We had to sing two songs; one was "The sky's a fairy field at night", the other was about pirates "Up with the Jolly Roger, boys." Only two choirs competed; the other was from a girls' school and we were not amused when the adjudicator said that the girls sang the pirate song better than we did. Guess who won.